Shake Your "Groove Thing"

This morning proved to be quite entertaining. Between frustration and fascination I am caught with the observations of my self-defining 2 year old daughter.

It appears that my daughter has picked up a new clue. To put things in context, we engaged in delightful conversations, as much as that term applies, covering the range of finishing cereal, wanting juice and which juice, wanting an orange and wanting to squish bananas. Then, during the usual morning struggle over breakfast, dancing or playing and not wanting to go to daycare, I took my lunch box and portfolio to the car as much to give me a break and a chance to cool down as to speed up the inevitable support getting my daughter into the car. When I returned all of 30 seconds later, my daughter asked for a bag for her orange, her sunglasses and her coat. Yep, she started getting herself ready for the ride to daycare. Moments later she was in coat with sunglasses in one had and bag of oranges in the other. If she is using preparing the car as the clue to get ready to go I will be delighted.

On the way to daycare I stopped around the corner to fill up the car. I'd rather not run it on fumes. She sat happily in the back seat, radio playing, watching the cars and trucks move about the lot. With the extra influx of trucks supporting clean-up of the ice storm she was in heaven pointing out all of the "differen" (still missing the 't' on the end) big trucks, often accompanied by "oh, another one" and a finger pointing. I left her in the car and pumped gas. She continued to point and made the effort to talk to me through the rear window, looking back over her shoulder since she was restrained in her car seat still.

Minutes later I settled back into the driver's seat and my daughter was still giggling and babbling about trucks. KC & the Sunshine Band was on the radio. You can probably guess what was playing from the title of this post. Just as I was making my way through the lot I hear, "Shake boo boo, Daddy! Shake!" Somewhat shocked, I quickly hit deliberate word confusion mode, singing, "Shake your groove thing" to prevent any unnecessary learning and then started asking if she wanted to dance. We had as reasonable a dance session, enjoying the remainder of the song, as could be had while I was driving and she was strapped in her chair. When the song ended she disappointingly asked for me to play "Shake Shake" again.

I'm still smiling about it and probably will the rest of the day.